I am writing this on Saturday. There are no pictures this week.
The week got off to a shaky start when our FIOS service went down late Sunday. No Internet access. No TV. No telephone (other than cell phone service). On the first phone call to Verizon, Robo-voice suggested several times that I use the Internet to get help with my FIOS problems. The entire call was handled by Robo. At the end, Robo tested our line and decided our unit was down (duh) and scheduled a service call for sometime Tuesday. So far, so good. I called back Monday afternoon to find out when the service folks would come. I got plenty of advice about using the internet to get help with my FIOS problems. When I finally got to a human, they told me I had to call back Tuesday morning. I called back Tuesday morning. More advice about using the Intenet. After I got to an agent and after she looked at my account, she *again* said I should use the Internet. That was a little too much for me. The Verizon truck arrived about 6:00 PM, along with two union techs. They replaced the unit, and the FIOS was back up. They were nice guys, but Verizon’s costs have to be out of sight.
UMBC was closed Thursday and Friday for the Independence holiday. It gave both of us a feeling of having 3 Saturdays this week. I’m convinced, it’s something we should do at least 4 times a year. We had a very nice 4th. It was the first day in about two weeks with no rain. We went to downtown Columbia and watched a very cool fireworks show. We were planning to go to an outdoor concert on Friday. But the humidity was high and the rain was threatening. We decided to use a BOGO at Outback instead. Being air conditioned, that was much more comfortable.
Saturday Danita and Bud visited a condo for Bud. Bud was favorably impressed. I picked up Mark and the three of us enjoyed a home cooked dinner. Then Danita and I watched Gene Hackman and Will Smith in the old movie “Enemy of the State”. This was my 3rd time watching the movie. I think it’s highly entertaining. But what’s interesting these days is that Snowden’s recent revelations show that the government actually has almost everything shown in the movie. (The only thing I found surprising about Snowden’s revelations and related hoopla is that the NSA claims not to have the contents of everybody’s phone calls.)
Saturday the three of us went to Bob Evans for breakfast (another BOGO), followed by an early showing of “The Lone Ranger”. I actually assigned Mark the homework of watching an old Lone Ranger TV show, so he would understand why this movie is so incredibly funny. I would place this movie right up against “Cowboys and Aliens”, except that it turned out to be a lot less funny than I thought it would be. I wouldn’t recommend seeing it.
After the movie, we dropped Mark of at Hopkins and went to a retirement party for Bruce Rickter. He and Peggy dropped out of our Marriage Encounter Circle, but invited us all to the retirement party.
Tomorrow we have an ice cream social followed by an outdoor movie. Next week will be final preparations for my second bike tour. You should expect to receive an Email with a URL for my blog on Wednesday or Thursday.
That’s it for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.